Thank GOD for youtube...
Never really used the site before, but finally I was able to see the controversial Question Time featuring everybody's favourite children's entertainer, Nick Griffin.
I originally thought that it was fair enough to let him on the programme as the BBC is supposed to provide a balanced perspective of whatever landscape they are portraying. Did I want to see him there? No. But after their victories in the UK and Europe, maybe they deserve it. The fact that they reached the tipping point of being given a platform during prime time TV is more of a statement about the current state of disillusion in British politics and the mentality of the British people than the fault of the BBC. Don't like democracy? Move to China!
That said, I did understand the anger of those protesting against the BBC because I loathe the BNP, however since viewing the programme I think they never should have allowed it to go ahead, but for a different reason. I agree the format changed compared with the regular programme, and NG should have known that would happen, and have been better prepared for it if he actually wanted to make any kind of impact and not be seen as a whiny git afterwards. However, what really disgusted me was everybody else involved in the programme: the interviewer, the panel, the mob, and the BBC.
For starters the panel was separated into: politicians camera left, interviewer centre, non-politicians (including NG) camera right. Additionally, just to strengthen NG's ineptitude, they brought in the exceedingly well-cultivated Bonnie Greer to poke digs about NG's education, despite admitting herself that she knew nothing about politics... What the hell was she doing on QT, the flagship BBC political programme?!
David Dimbelby was shockingly bad. Unless orders came from on-high, he is solely responsible for the format and direction the programme takes. Therefore he is responsible for ensuring equality in time taken by and given to each member of the panel, selecting appropriate and diverse questions from the audience, ensuring adequate conduct by all parties and maintaining general impartiality. In all of the above he failed miserably. Most questions and most answers were directed at NG and sniping at the BNP. What happened to the rest of current affairs? If anything, the BNP is old news, compared with the Royal Mail dispute or the UK being the only main European country still in recession, and is therefore certainly not worthy of five sixth's of the programme. Admittedly some of the questions raised a smile, but ultimately NG was insulted and heckled on national television... and Dimbelby did bugger all to prevent it. I know that the interviewer will occasionally take a temporary position to force an unwilling panelist to be forth-coming or make a remark to get a giggle from the crowd, but it appeared that he had been preparing to demolish NG from the moment his appearence on the programme was announced. He took a round of comments all slagging the BNP from the audience. Is this the best the BBC can do to further intelligent political discussion by experts in the field? There was some brief respite when he rightly rounded his attention on Jack Straw who again attempted to dodge another question by targetting the BNP, but in face of such hostility towards one party the interviewer should have been there to deflect some of the blows to ensure NG's position was heard, and to allow for panelists to respond. Instead he positively encouraged it.
Much as I understand, agree and side with the public's frustration at the BNP's recent successes, I don't think it's fair for them to continuously ask hostile leading (and sometimes insulting) questions at one particular panelist. QT should be bringing about debate, and unnecessary pummeling of the weakest link does not do that. Most of the questions were not even aimed that the panel, but solely at Nick Griffin. There was a fair bit of babble about what defined the term "British" and I think that one thing that would most frequently comes to mind was having a stiff upper lip, and all the audience (bar one Asian fellow) significantly lacked that. Very disappointing, I thought.
As for the panel, they seemed to be doing what is most shown in political broadcasts, point-scoring. In this case it was more like shooting fish in a barrel as they were unified against NG and the points were scored by the rapturous applause of a rabid blood-thirsty audience. Even non-BNP-related questions were dragged the back to immigration, race, sometimes more subtly than others, probably because time taken on a shared easy target reduces the time available to hostile questionning for the mainstream parties. Effectively this was a cakewalk for them, take it out on public enemy number one, and reap the benefits of your heroic oratorial posing. However, for me the way they consistently interrupted him was what pissed me off the most about this programme. I can only recall one question where he was allowed to actually go to the end of his reasoning. Other than that he was interrupted or side-tracked before being clobbered by the other four panel members. You know what this says to me? They're afraid. Why else would they barge in and pour scorn on a half-finished sentence? That bugs me on a personal level anyway, but if they all agree that NG's position, thoughts and proposals are rubbish, why not let him try to express them clearly and completely so that they can precisely and strategically demolish him point by point, backed up with statistics and hard facts. That's far more humiliating than the stereotypical piles of repetitive trash about racism they rained down on him, and much better for applause and influence of public opinion. This was just public flagelation, and in a supposed humane, civilised society that should not happen, especially for what happens inside people's minds.
Though his party may disagree, I think Nick Griffin came out pretty well from the debate. granted he only got a few meagre points accross, and often fumbled with his words, but he stayed calm in the face of tremendous pressure and hostility. He once even managed to throw a ball firmly back into the Labour/Conservative camp, whilst making a valid point about interventions in the Middle East. From the word go it was clear 90% there were against him, but he did not resort to the Galloway/Berlusconi tactic of attacking the questionners (well he did have a jibe at the BBC, but it was sort of related to the issue of the moment), by declaring the "debate" the sham that it was. If anything this debate will only serve to polarise swing voters (if there is such as a thing for the BNP). There will be those (mainly mainstream party supporters) who had a hearty laugh and will come out with renewed venom for the BNP, and there will be those who felt sorry for him, who would now be more open to listening to him express his own views, on his own platform, without "experts" to demolish his crappy arguments about indigineity and immigration.
Apparently the BNP has been having internal convulsions since the broadcast, and it's possible that they may be weakened because of this, and though that is a good thing, I think the BBC's "good intentions" have been swamped by they dirty tactics. It may be that things simply got out of David Dimbelby's hand, but this should have been prepared for better, as with football derbys or peace-keeping missions. However, more likely this was expected, planned and hoped for as a way of boosting ratings as well as "doing their bit for the anti-fascism". I think they could've done a lot better, and they could've done it a lot cleaner.
I originally thought that it was fair enough to let him on the programme as the BBC is supposed to provide a balanced perspective of whatever landscape they are portraying. Did I want to see him there? No. But after their victories in the UK and Europe, maybe they deserve it. The fact that they reached the tipping point of being given a platform during prime time TV is more of a statement about the current state of disillusion in British politics and the mentality of the British people than the fault of the BBC. Don't like democracy? Move to China!
That said, I did understand the anger of those protesting against the BBC because I loathe the BNP, however since viewing the programme I think they never should have allowed it to go ahead, but for a different reason. I agree the format changed compared with the regular programme, and NG should have known that would happen, and have been better prepared for it if he actually wanted to make any kind of impact and not be seen as a whiny git afterwards. However, what really disgusted me was everybody else involved in the programme: the interviewer, the panel, the mob, and the BBC.
For starters the panel was separated into: politicians camera left, interviewer centre, non-politicians (including NG) camera right. Additionally, just to strengthen NG's ineptitude, they brought in the exceedingly well-cultivated Bonnie Greer to poke digs about NG's education, despite admitting herself that she knew nothing about politics... What the hell was she doing on QT, the flagship BBC political programme?!
David Dimbelby was shockingly bad. Unless orders came from on-high, he is solely responsible for the format and direction the programme takes. Therefore he is responsible for ensuring equality in time taken by and given to each member of the panel, selecting appropriate and diverse questions from the audience, ensuring adequate conduct by all parties and maintaining general impartiality. In all of the above he failed miserably. Most questions and most answers were directed at NG and sniping at the BNP. What happened to the rest of current affairs? If anything, the BNP is old news, compared with the Royal Mail dispute or the UK being the only main European country still in recession, and is therefore certainly not worthy of five sixth's of the programme. Admittedly some of the questions raised a smile, but ultimately NG was insulted and heckled on national television... and Dimbelby did bugger all to prevent it. I know that the interviewer will occasionally take a temporary position to force an unwilling panelist to be forth-coming or make a remark to get a giggle from the crowd, but it appeared that he had been preparing to demolish NG from the moment his appearence on the programme was announced. He took a round of comments all slagging the BNP from the audience. Is this the best the BBC can do to further intelligent political discussion by experts in the field? There was some brief respite when he rightly rounded his attention on Jack Straw who again attempted to dodge another question by targetting the BNP, but in face of such hostility towards one party the interviewer should have been there to deflect some of the blows to ensure NG's position was heard, and to allow for panelists to respond. Instead he positively encouraged it.
Much as I understand, agree and side with the public's frustration at the BNP's recent successes, I don't think it's fair for them to continuously ask hostile leading (and sometimes insulting) questions at one particular panelist. QT should be bringing about debate, and unnecessary pummeling of the weakest link does not do that. Most of the questions were not even aimed that the panel, but solely at Nick Griffin. There was a fair bit of babble about what defined the term "British" and I think that one thing that would most frequently comes to mind was having a stiff upper lip, and all the audience (bar one Asian fellow) significantly lacked that. Very disappointing, I thought.
As for the panel, they seemed to be doing what is most shown in political broadcasts, point-scoring. In this case it was more like shooting fish in a barrel as they were unified against NG and the points were scored by the rapturous applause of a rabid blood-thirsty audience. Even non-BNP-related questions were dragged the back to immigration, race, sometimes more subtly than others, probably because time taken on a shared easy target reduces the time available to hostile questionning for the mainstream parties. Effectively this was a cakewalk for them, take it out on public enemy number one, and reap the benefits of your heroic oratorial posing. However, for me the way they consistently interrupted him was what pissed me off the most about this programme. I can only recall one question where he was allowed to actually go to the end of his reasoning. Other than that he was interrupted or side-tracked before being clobbered by the other four panel members. You know what this says to me? They're afraid. Why else would they barge in and pour scorn on a half-finished sentence? That bugs me on a personal level anyway, but if they all agree that NG's position, thoughts and proposals are rubbish, why not let him try to express them clearly and completely so that they can precisely and strategically demolish him point by point, backed up with statistics and hard facts. That's far more humiliating than the stereotypical piles of repetitive trash about racism they rained down on him, and much better for applause and influence of public opinion. This was just public flagelation, and in a supposed humane, civilised society that should not happen, especially for what happens inside people's minds.
Though his party may disagree, I think Nick Griffin came out pretty well from the debate. granted he only got a few meagre points accross, and often fumbled with his words, but he stayed calm in the face of tremendous pressure and hostility. He once even managed to throw a ball firmly back into the Labour/Conservative camp, whilst making a valid point about interventions in the Middle East. From the word go it was clear 90% there were against him, but he did not resort to the Galloway/Berlusconi tactic of attacking the questionners (well he did have a jibe at the BBC, but it was sort of related to the issue of the moment), by declaring the "debate" the sham that it was. If anything this debate will only serve to polarise swing voters (if there is such as a thing for the BNP). There will be those (mainly mainstream party supporters) who had a hearty laugh and will come out with renewed venom for the BNP, and there will be those who felt sorry for him, who would now be more open to listening to him express his own views, on his own platform, without "experts" to demolish his crappy arguments about indigineity and immigration.
Apparently the BNP has been having internal convulsions since the broadcast, and it's possible that they may be weakened because of this, and though that is a good thing, I think the BBC's "good intentions" have been swamped by they dirty tactics. It may be that things simply got out of David Dimbelby's hand, but this should have been prepared for better, as with football derbys or peace-keeping missions. However, more likely this was expected, planned and hoped for as a way of boosting ratings as well as "doing their bit for the anti-fascism". I think they could've done a lot better, and they could've done it a lot cleaner.